Gregor and Goldmund: an Odyssey
by mac11andcheese
Summary: Gregor from The Metamorphosis and Goldmund from Narcissus and Goldmund meet at a pleasure dome and embark on a journey across the world to carry out the wishes of Kublai Khan.
1. Chapter 1: The Pleasure Dome

Chapter 1: The Pleasure Dome

The shadow of the hemisphere of pleasure stretched the length of the valley as the sun set, creating a black river of premature darkness where a river once flowed. The dome was milky, gleaming. Goldmund marveled at the white phenomenon, unable to comprehend its inherent beauty. Its impossibility sent him into a frenzy, one in which he ceased to regard life as beautiful, for this structure transcended life; it was from another world. Nothing in Goldmund's life could compare to this spectacular creation. He knew no human could be capable of crafting such a perfectly round hemisphere, and that the gods which dwelled no doubt within dwarfed his imagination. Rather than turning back, however, he rode toward the pleasure dome.

Halfway down the mountain's side, Goldmund's horse saw the dome and its brain became jumbled. Its legs caught one another and Goldmund was flung from his steed into a pile of stones. A particularly jagged edge forced its way between the fallen man's ribs, snapping any curved bones impeding its path. Goldmund watched his spasmodic horse twitch beside him until the red veil shrouding his vision darkened to cerise, and then black.

He awoke bandaged, still on his side, but now having much softer company cosseting him. Both fluffy and silky, the materials adorning Goldmund made him realizing his nakedness far less troubling. Lazily he opened his swollen eyes to see a woman, his mother, above him, smiling down from the heavens. The scene then melted before him, it was not his mother, but an Asiatic woman, wearing only strips of a cloth Goldmund had never seen. She twirled for this awestruck man until he suddenly stood up, his red eyes crazed, the robe around him drifting to the floor in no hurry.

"Where is the hemisphere?" he asked, certain that anyone who had seen such a sight would know of what he spoke.

"Qinai de," the girl he knew was either a princess or a slave said, "ni shi kuaile de yuan ding nei."

* * *

To Gregor the dome looked like a giant oily pimple in between the creases of the earth. Piercing such a bubble at its apex may cause a volcanic eruption of pus, he concluded, but to bite at its base may release some of the sweet rotten excretions of mother earth herself. The choices were a frothy death or infinite satiation, for there was no doubt whatever foul secretions rendered from the greasy dome would be hot and addictive; nothing would ever satisfy Gregor again if he were to drink from this fountain, and he had already decided he would.

The giant cockroach therefore passed the decaying horse it normally would have feasted upon in the highest of spirits, flying instead toward the alien dome enticing it.

* * *

Kublai Khan had been sitting in the plush ball of cotton for hundreds of years, his red eyes glazed over, stumped limbs cyanotic, broad beard braided with all sorts of beads threaded through, and gelatinous body perfectly round, a miniature sculpture of the palace of his residence. He sipped upon a blue and pink drink that fell from the sky in a thin stream that stopped abruptly whenever he turned his head to the side to take a breath. Seventy-two women were playing his flute, and though none of them were formally trained, it was Kublai's opinion that even a bad orchestra was a good one, and like the central limit theorem, the chances of it being good grew with the numbers of those preforming the act. That being said, the Khan did not have the capacity to think these thoughts, let alone express them. He was completely oblivious to the bizarre orchestra taking place above his catatonic body. The girls were all standing and holding and pressing their lips against the 25 cubit wooden instrument, all of them breathing through their noses as they played, for their lips were glued to the flute by a mixture of saliva and sap. The cacophony produced by this ensemble could have woken Lazarus from his grave, but it did nothing to excite Kublai. Turning his head seemed to be the only physical exertion he was capable of, and this was not a conscious act, only a somnolent tick the khan's survival necessitated. The women were never bothered by their audience's lack of attention. They were enraptured in their own noise, and had been for hundreds of years.

* * *

Gregor, feverishly hungry for the spoils of mother earth's blemish, landed on a bed of twigs beside the rising white dome and plunged his toothless mouth into the shiny wall. The translucent skin snapped and a surplus of pus gushed into the roach's mouth. The white ambrosia quickly filled up the giant bug, and within a minute Gregor turned his head to gasp for air. As soon as the breath was taken, more pus spewed from the hole and knocked him onto the ground, unconscious.

* * *

While Gregor was dreaming of his sister, Goldmund took care to learn something from the Asiatic woman, whose name remained unknown to him, but not because of her lack of repeating it. Her speech to Goldmund was completely incomprehensible, but her love he understood very well, though it seemed that he was teaching more than he taught, for the first time in his life. The woman was quite pleased, judging by her languid composure in the lovemaking's aftermath, but she did not leave him as did the others. An enormous weight crushed Goldmund's soul when he came to this realization, with her body nestled in his own.

"I cannot stay with you," said Goldmund. "I must return to the cloister and die there, with my best friend."

The girl looked into his eyes, and then kissed him on the mouth. To her, that was as good as a proposal. She took his hand and led him to the court of her father to receive his blessing. Goldmund let himself be led, if only to see if there was an exit on the way to wherever they were going.

* * *

Gregor came to in a light blue room with no doors or windows. It varied in size, depending on the height he held himself at. Lying flat on the ground, he was imprisoned in an infinite expanse, and could crawl forever, but if he rose, the room contracted, and by the time he stood upright his hair touched the ceiling and nose touched the wall.

Gregor then realized that he had a nose.

* * *

A pin of trepidation penetrated Goldmund's thoughts once the first auditory convulsions reached his ears. What could make such a horrible sound? Surely nothing of this earth. Just as the dome had exceeded earthly standards, this noise made the smacks of an old man's gums as they chewed oatmeal a pleasant reminiscence. Still, the two lovers, one young and one old, let the music carry them to their destination.

Goldmund drew back with a disgusted snarl when they finally entered the source of the foul music. The anorexic brown women playing, who looked like malnourished clones of the girl that planned to betroth Goldmund, did not pause despite their nasty review.

"My father and sisters," the girl said, waving her hand across the traumatic tableau. "They shall grant us their blessing." Goldmund still had no idea of what she uttered.

The great conglomeration of fattened flesh rose on the other side of the room, a look on its face more tormented than its soon-to-be son-in-law.

"War," the blob stated.

The seventy-two women tore their faces from the instrument. Their lips remained attached to the multitude of mouthpieces, and their bared teeth hissed and cursed in foreign tongues. Conjointly, the women plunged the flute into the stomach of the fat emperor, and immediately they were thrown to their backs from the gas exhausted from the billowing hole. The fat man quickly deflated, swishing around the room, propelled randomly by acrid air like a popped balloon. Goldmund looked to his side to see the girl whom had taken him impaled by the flute, breathing her last breath. He took her hand and kissed it, and she died. The entire structure trembled. Tiles fell from the ceiling. A flat piece of skin landed by Goldmund's feet. It spoke to him.

"Travel to the pleasure dome on the opposite side of the earth; it has been sieged by the forces of evil. Do this and save the world."

Goldmund looked at the empty sack of skin that was Kublai Khan, horrified. Then he fled.

Goldmund heard laughter as the dome dismantled itself around him. It was hysterical, it didn't come from anywhere, rather, its source was in his head, and it drowned out all other noise. Not that there was any other noise to drown out. The walls fell, glass shattered, and the ground parted, fumes spewing from the broken seam, all of this silent. The exhausted steam tore its way into Goldmund's nostrils, sending him into frenetic fits of coughing as he stumbled through a self-destructing maze he wasn't even sure there was an end to. The laughter was all he could hear; sweat and tears all he could see; ash all he could taste; feelings of intense heat, claustrophobia he'd never known, and the maniacal laughter of a free man tormenting him sent Goldmund into a delirium. He scraped at a bare wall with his hands, and it collapsed. One of the rabid flute players was on the other side, drool dripping down her naked front. She stood with vacant eyes, waiting, and when nothing came somnolently stepped into the widening pit, no scream following her. Only laughter.

"Who the hell is laughing?" Goldmund mouthed at the top of his lungs, but not a sound sequestered the movements of his lips and tongue.

It stopped immediately. Wreckage piled around him, threatening to bury him, but Goldmund stood very still.

"Sorry, I thought I was alone here," a voice said in Goldmund's mind. Had the girl drugged him, Goldmund wondered. He also worried if whoever spoke could hear his thoughts, too, or only those he mouthed, if whoever it was existed outside of his mind, of course. But wouldn't that mean Goldmund could read the stranger's mind as well? Assuming that the other hadn't established the telepathic link, and that was improbable due to his surprise at Goldmund's presence, the two of them had the same capacities in regard to communication. That was assuming a lot, however.

"Who are you?"

"Gregor. And you?"

"Goldmund. Have you any idea how to escape this forsaken structure?"

"I've got a good one. Turn around."

Goldmund spun around, expecting to be attacked, but what he saw was the mountainside, and a man standing on a boulder half entrenched in the dirt. A landscape of rubble lied between them, languid but menacing. Particulates swam in the murky, stagnant air. Goldmund waded through. As he stepped over uprooted columns, mushed chairs, and splintered architecture, a brown mask collected on his slimy skin.

The figure that approached Gregor was featureless and dark. He thought perhaps it was a demon playing a trick on him, and nervously rolled a stone around in his pocket. His anxiety ceased when the thing reached up and removed the thick coat of brown matter, revealing a human countenance.

"Gregor I presume," the man said, out of his mouth.

"You presume right, Goldmund," Gregor said, without needing confirmation for the other man's name. "We should get acquainted later, now we must leave this place before the whole valley is shrouded in that dust and we are lost forever."

Goldmund took the man's hand and got up on the boulder, and then they began their ascent.


	2. Chapter 2: The Village

The two men were out of breath, so there was no possibility for inquiries, to the displeasure of both parties. They were very interested in one another, in the way innocent men are when they encounter jovial thieves. Neither felt comfortable with a stranger who had witnessed what they had, because neither could be sure of the extent of the other's involvement. However, this was also why they couldn't let each other out of sight. Gregor felt especially embarrassed about his fit of laughing, and Goldmund was a little more on edge than he would've been for that same reason.

Eventually their trekking across mountains and hills lead them to a river, which Gregor ran to with haste, while Goldmund eyed it with disinterest. Gregor looked back as he knelt with his face down against the water, barely able to stop himself to notice Goldmund's absence by his side.

"You going to get a drink?"

"We'll have to boil it first."

"Boil it? This is fresh water, there's no point in boiling it."

"No? There's human waste in that water, from a village upstream. You take a sip of that, you'll die from disease before dehydration."

"Nonsense, I drink from this river all the time! I'd- No, I was wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

"That was another river. This is a different one."

Goldmund snorted. "Come on, the village isn't far."

Gregor got up, eyeing the river longingly, and then followed Goldmund, who had already started walking.

* * *

A bar awaited them, the rest of the village was invisible to their eyes, for the tap had transcended, and all reality centered around it. Everything else flickered, but the bar was solid. Goldmund felt so transparent he considered walking straight through the door like a ghost, but decided against it, because he didn't want to frighten anyone. Gregor thought of flying to their destination once he saw it, but of course he could no longer do that.

Goldmund's entrance wouldn't have had the effect he'd thought it would, for there was no door to the bar. A barmaid greeted them, they took a seat, and they indulged themselves. The two travelers told anecdotal stories and conversed about mild topics and grew to like each other in their intoxicated states. Both knew that trust was not yet shared between them, but the inspection of the townsfolk kept them both safe from each other, if one of them was indeed a larger part of the events which took place that morning. Goldmund bought them rooms at the bar for the night, for Gregor had no money. A dreamless night awaited them.

* * *

Goldmund woke to the sound of the barmaid's scream he could only identify as hers because he saw her out in the hallway.

"What is it? What is it?" the rough voice of the bartender barked as he passed her, going toward Gregor's room. His next exclamation prompted Goldmund to jolt out of bed and see what had happened.

Gregor's door was open, and the bartender stood in front of it, paralyzed. Goldmund looked over the man's shoulder to see what had drawn such cries. A cockroach the size of a man sat on Gregor's bed. As soon as its glassy brown eyes reflected Goldmund's horrified face, the bug rose an inch and crawled up the wall, toward an open window. The barkeeper snapped into action, jumping beside the bed and kicking the roach off the wall. It fell onto its back and began rocking.

"Persistent feller, aren't ya?" The barkeep reached over the turning bug and grabbed the sheets on the other side. He pulled them up around the bug and tied the sack shut. The bug stopped moving, and the barkeeper proceeded to haul the bag away, to god knows where.

Goldmund followed the barkeeper out of the bar. They walked into the woods along a path of mire. The sheets grew black and their backs damp. Leaves reached out over the path to pat their heads as they past. Roots crossed the path, rising out of it defiantly, there to spite those who wore away the ground above it. Poison ivy littered the ground and wrapped around trees and threw itself off of branches into the path, deceitfully inviting travelers to take a swing. The bartender stopped in no close proximity to a clearing.

"You'd better quit followin' me, old man," he said to Goldmund.

"I want to know what that thing is."

The barkeep whipped around, his gnarled nose threatening Goldmund between eyes wide and red like bloody eggs.

"I don't."

The bartender drove his foot into the sack, still maintaining eye contact with his guest. A harsh squeal exited, and they both looked down at it.

The contours of the sack outlined the shape of a man, and the two men shared a revelation. The barkeeper began dragging the thing the other way and Goldmund followed, no longer protested.

* * *

Goldmund had been waiting for hours, pacing back and forth in front of the jailhouse as more and more people filtered in. At noon a bell rang, and the town was empty except for him. A guard beckoned him to come inside, so he did. The front of the brick building was just a hall with cells for drunks on the side of it, to the left only, and then the hall twisted left and split into two halls, one which led to the dungeons, and the other to the courtroom. Every seat was full, so he had to stand in the back. A judge sat forlornly above the people, to the left of a small stage, with nothing to distinguish him but a gavel and the high chair he sat upon. He was an old man with a naturally angry face. His scowl presided over the court.

No one spoke. The door beside the stage opened and two burly men stepped out, dragging a third by a harness tied around his neck. Gregor's skin was uncovered and purple. Hard lumps rose from his back and chest, conjoining, as if he were a sack, and something was trapped inside, bulging in its beaten haven. His eyes were pleading, sorrowful, and repenting. There was pure, honest fear in his face; he had no control over the events taking place. The men jostled him to his knees in front of the audience, which looked upon him silently, and if Goldmund could tell by the tension seen only from the backs of their heads, unsympathetically.

"Witness one!" the judge said sharply.

The Barkeeper stood up and hopped onto the stage.

"I gave this man a bed last night that he paid for, and that was good and well, but when my barmaid opened the door this mornin' he was gone and replaced by a giant bug!" The crowd roared in surprise, and immediately quieted down. "I was taking it out back to take care of it when all of a sudden it turned to a man, him!" He pointed at Gregor. "He's a shapeshifter, a puppet of the devil I tell you!"

The audience roared in approval. The judge banged his gavel.

"Witness two!"

The barmaid got up and began telling her story. Goldmund made for way he came in. The guard out front stopped him.

"Where are you going? Court is in session."

"I'm sorry, I'm just a traveler. I've got a weak stomach."

"Then throw up, vagrant. You're not leaving this court until the man is sentenced."

Goldmund turned back and went down the hall a third time. This time, however, he went into the dungeon. He had been planning on raiding the village's armory once he made up his mind to save Gregor, but this would have to be good enough.

The dungeon was a spacious room, with not much torture equipment, only whips mounted across the walls and a box full of goodies in the corner that had no value if your enemies could fight back. Goldmund grabbed one of the whips, put it beneath his shirt and under his pants and made sure his belt was fastened taut around his waist. He took a few practice strides without it falling down, and then left the dungeon.

"I sentence thee-"

"Stop!" Goldmund shouted. "The man is innocent, the bartender and his maid are insane!"

The crowd responded negatively to his comments. A few off them grabbed him as he past, trying to drag him down to the floor. He brushed them off, intending to release Gregor. The barkeeper stood in front of him.

"You shoulda told the truth," he said, punching Gregor's savior in the jaw, knocking him to the floor where he stayed, a whip sticking out of his ass.

* * *

The arch of thistles and twigs tightened around oak branches yawned over the town like a disembodied chapped upper lip, the raging rapids splashing from its maw like spittle, drawing mist into the air, dampening the trodden wooden planks that didn't creak but squelched, weren't warped but soft in the least comfortable way. The naked prisoners stood bent over the crowd, their feet sinking into the wood. Their knees shook and they clutched their blue bodies feebly, not out of embarrassment, only for the bit of warmth it gave. The crowd's eyes were red and hungry. Spoons were clutched in each hand, thrust into those of a small child. Looney grins and outstretched necks and cocked heads and the reverend's cold indifferent gaze as he pulled up their arms, wrapped their chains in the thistles above, and stepped back without inspecting his handiwork.

The reverend read a passage from the bible, but it was muffled by the roaring waters. The prisoners were then doused in grease, and the front row of the crowd rubbed together stones that they had chosen as children and always brought out for these special occasions.

The light haired one screamed, and tore his hands from the arch, gripping a stick yanked from the heavens. The reverend got it in his eye, all the way to the back of his head, till he could feel the pressure as it pressed against the top of his spine. The perpetrator dropped the reverend into the raving crowd, the gnashing teeth, and the sparks of sparks of fire, and tackled the other prisoner, sending them both into the river.

The old man turned on his back in the tumult, forcing the other body above him as the rocks scraped his sides and dug into his back like claws reaching out from the murky abyss. Flames enveloped him and the shadow above spread out over the surface of the water, losing all shape and form, becoming a tarp of utter blackness.


	3. Chapter 3: Wandering

Goldmund woke in a mold of his own back made from grainy white sand, alone. The sky was grey and churning, just as it had been earlier. He stood up and stretched. Clotted sand fell from holes Goldmund was not accustomed to having. Over his shoulder he spied three long gashes down his back where the sand had sopped up the most blood. He shrugged, and flames shot up his back. So not an affliction he could just shrug off. A cry from the wilderness,

"You're awake! Finally!" another naked man bounded from the forest and embraced Goldmund, careful not to wrap his hands too tightly around his wounded backside.

Gregor held Goldmund by his triceps. "How can I ever thank you, my savior! I pledge my life to thee, anything you desire you will have, within my ability. Please, I beg of you, forgive me of deceiving you; you wouldn't have believed my situation if I had told you it."

"That may be," Goldmund said, "but what is your situation, exactly?"

"I woke up one day as a cockroach, many, many years ago. Only yesterday did I return to my true self, inexplicably."

"That explains the laughing… I suppose I can forgive your transgression, if you tell me your story, young man."

And so Gregor told Goldmund how he had woken up one day as a cockroach, and how his family reacted, and their alienation toward him, and his regression to a bug's mind state, and the incident with the three renters and his sister's music.

"At that point I felt it was best if I left my family. I slowed my metabolism to a hundredth of its normal pace and shut off most of my body. They bought my fraudulent death and threw me out unceremoniously. I stayed for a few weeks to see how their lives were unfolding and felt gratified. What happened was for the best."

"For you, as well?"

"I had been toiling, working nonstop for their sake for years, and being a cockroach really wasn't as bad as it sounds. Once the initial shock wore away, it felt natural."

"I can see how that could be true, though I could never imagine being in your position. What did you do after that?"

"I traveled to Africa, where the climate was more agreeable to my new body. I lived there for over fifty years, had quite a few urban legends made about me, and then I was captured by British government agents. They performed several experiments on me and spoke of me as if they understood my previous personhood. Eventually one of them, an old, ugly, bespectacled man with an etymology tracing roughly back to maggot had a long talk with me about controlling the past, future and present, and about under-fertilization of certain crops leading to their extinction, and then they put me in a machine and I woke up in a castle dungeon, which I escaped after mauling several guards. Since then I've been wandering around Europe. As a cockroach I had the ability to learn languages in minimal amounts of time, and from what I've overheard, we are living a few hundred years before my birth."

Goldmund's eyes widened. "You're from the future?"

"Yes."

Goldmund found this hard to believe, but he did, because the man who told him could turn into a giant cockroach, and if that was possible Goldmund could believe anything. He also recalled the flat piece of skin that had talked to him, what it had said.

"Gregor, I'm going to the other side of the world. You can choose to come with me if you wish."

"I'll go wherever you go, Goldmund, I owe my life to you. Could I ask why?"

"The cause of the destruction we witnessed yesterday is there, and I must find it and render it powerless."

"I shall come with you then. How are we getting to New Zealand, though? Will we be able to afford a boat?"

"What is New Zealand?"

* * *

Gregor and Goldmund slept on a great plain that night. The skies were baby blue and cloudless. The moon was full, and now regurgitated the sunlight it had eaten onto the treeless expanse, making it too bright to sleep without a cover over one's eyes. The two naked travelers snatched patches of grass from the ground and made nests over their closed eyelids, falling asleep soon after.

That evening they had discussed their travel plans, mapping out in the dirt how they would make their way through Transylvania, then ride the Ural River to the other side of the continent, and subsequently sail to the large island in the pacific Gregor called "New Zealand." The dirt was left undisturbed by the wind or any smothering feet.

Goldmund had known which berries to pick in the forest, and they had gorged themselves before leaving. This was apparent by the stains that had dried on their bare chests and chewed fruity flecks tangled in their unshaven beards. Neither of them bothered to point out the red rings around the other's mouth. The men looked savage and insane as they lay on their backs with interwoven spirals of grass sprouting from their eyes and what looked like blood covering them. An odd number of eyes observed this, and drew back into the wilderness.

* * *

It had been two days since Gregor or Goldmund had seen a soul, when they saw a fat man stumbling down a hillside adjacent to theirs. Each of his steps dug deep into the dirt, pushing forward the grass and minerals beneath so his tracks looked like horseshoes. No, not stumbling, the man was falling, and the craters left behind him did nothing to slow momentum. They were increasing in size down the hill, as if a foal had been born at its top and in its descent had grown to full maturity. The skintight flask of lard bounded across the valley and up the next hill a few steps, and then fell backwards. Goldmund and Gregor concurred that the fellow looked quite dead; there was a hole in his head that went straight through.

"Someone's jumbled his brains through that hole," Goldmund observed.

"What sort of tool could do something like that? And why would it be used to this end?"

"No," the presumed dead man startled them by speaking. "They jumbled my brains before they made the hole."

"What does that mean?"

Goldmund shrugged, and winced at the automatic pain he felt by doing so. "Remind me not to be so indecisive."

It was about this time that the warm air exhaled from the fat man's mouth reached the level of our heroes' noses. The breath stunk of rancid alcohol, the kind left in the sun all day and chugged and chucked up by curious children. Gregor turned around to dry heave and Goldmund drew his nonexistent shirt over his nose, cursing his nakedness and the lack of clothes lying about the plains and hillsides of the country.

"Should we bother questioning this corpse any longer?" Goldmund asked, tired of this distraction.

"Yes," Gregor said firmly. "I recognize his clothing."

To the horizontal party he asked, "Why are you here?"

"To fertilize certain crops that are endangered or extinct in my time," the man said as if reading from an Encyclopaedia, his eye crossing, hypnotized by something no longer in front of it. Thereafter he expired.

"His time," Goldmund repeated. "So he's like you, then."

"In one way, at least."

"Come on, we'll want to be far away from here when whoever put that hole in his head shows up looking for him, lest we want to find out what it's like to fertilize something men aren't usually accustomed to fertilizing."

"Lead the way."

* * *

By a stream Goldmund and Gregor met a boy covered in rashes. He was laid out upon a slab like a sacrifice. The boy looked at the roaming naked men and said, "Please kill me."

"To acquiesce would be to make me a child killer."

"I disagree. You would rank among the utmost respected caretakers, sir, for this pain I'm in makes one wish for death more than heartbreak, and if my mother knew how much pain I have suffered she would surely be much more devastated by that than news of a quick death."

"Why not kill yourself then, boy?"

"Eternal damnation, good sir, an infinite pain of this degree. There would be no difference, you see."

"I see. Come with us, boy, and we shall find a battlefield where you can venture into crossfire, therefore no one can bear your death on their conscious."

"Fine, I will come with you, but if three days pass, and we find no soldiers to accidently kill me, then you must take it upon yourself to do the deed."

"I agree to your terms, boy, now come with us and do not fall behind."

The boy grimaced and removed himself from the slab, and the journeyers went forward. Three days later, the boy's rashes had cleared up, and he left by his own will, them encountering no battles during the passage of time. Biding the boy farewell, Goldmund thanked the gods he was not forced to fulfill his promise.


	4. Chapter 4: Love

He met her in the spring. Rays of light poked through the trees like tangible objects, melted ore poured into invisible slits, radiating brightly with swimming particles, the ascending water vapor. A family of deer bowed on the still edge of the still water, unperturbed by the presence of humans. A branch broke on the other side of the spring, from the depths of dense underbrush flourishing with hidden birds singing and squirrels hopping. Goldmund's attention was taken for a moment, and when it returned the deer were gone.

His hair was sticky and tangled and glistened in the sunlight so that the white for a moment was reminiscent of the golden crown it once was. Someone slender appeared out of the brush, unblemished by the rough foliage. She waded into the water uninvited, not that she was unwelcome. Her hair was brown. It ran perfectly symmetrical over her shoulders. Each step she took shifted the hair but it always returned to its original place. She was pale, so pale it seemed the sun had never touched her, but it was now.

There were no words. It would have been unnatural. She pressed her lips against his old, and they made love under the water. Ripples reached the edge of the water, slapping down on the stony shore, powerful enough to match the tallest wave the coasts bore. The water was hot, and a mix of perspiration and water and saliva covered their faces and dirtied their hair.

Gregor held himself against a tree amid the unnavigable brush, watching and thinking to himself that now might not be the best time to tell Goldmund he had learned to control his transformation, while supposedly taking a bathroom break.

* * *

Gregor remained aloof to Julia after their introduction, though Goldmund could not get him to divulge a reason for this, or acknowledge it at all. "I'm behaving perfectly normal. I don't know what you're going on about," he'd say, when Goldmund brought up his Julia-induced awkwardness.

The three walked for days, without deviation from their agreed upon path. Julia didn't seem to have a purpose of her own. Gregor feared he'd be curse to thirdwheelmanship for the rest of the journey, and considered leaving during the night, and flying off to some distant land. He also couldn't tell Goldmund of his progress in transformative abilities, because Julia was deeply imbedded in their business. He even felt compelled to keep a leaf over his crotch in her presence, at least until they found clothes. Jesus, they'd been walking for weeks, and still nothing to wear.

He watched them sleep that night as he sat on a rock, building up the courage to leave Goldmund. He understood there was something special between the two lovers, after hearing of Goldmund's lecherous past. Yes, he owed him his life, but now Julia was here. She would take care of him. No, that idea was laughable. Her ribs were too visible for her to be of any use. She didn't have clothes either. Was beginning to be a burden, really. And he couldn't abandon his friend, because Goldmund was more than his savior. No, he couldn't leave. There was still an unbalance, however. He liked Julia enough, though she was young, but that wasn't it. He didn't want to trust her with his secret, though he felt there was no reason to tell her. There was no envy in Gregor's heart; he felt no desire to find a mate at all. He just felt as if Goldmund and Julia needed space for their love to grow. He couldn't grow entangled with them. He felt sure that Julia understood this. She probably wanted him to leave. As an adult, it seemed silly to make an assumption like this, but it was possible. It occurred to him that he'd never talked to Julia alone, or had the chance to. Goldmund and him had their little side talks, and Goldmund and Julia their own, but never Julia and Gregor. It wasn't surprising actually; it made perfect sense, but still, something was off. He decided to stick it out, in the end. They'd make it to their destination in a year, Goldmund would go back to die with Narcissus, and Gregor would stay, for he had heard New Zealand was a beautiful land. He laid his head back, and the next the he saw was his companions on fire.

* * *

Goldmund woke coated in oil. He opened his mouth to warn the others and had more dumped into his mouth. He pushed Julia awake, and a great whoomf! of fire appeared before him. Flames spread over his body for a moment and then he was drenched in greyish white nothingness. For a moment he thought he was seeing the afterlife, though it seemed strange to die so quickly, and without any pain.

Gregor watched the flames dissipate from Julia's glinting, metallic side. A hose tore through the flesh of her hand and shot white foam over her fiery lover. The leering faces of the townsfolk grew hollow and terrified as they drew back from the half-skeleton woman.

"Devil! It's the devil!" they screamed, some of them turning and running.

Julia grabbed the closest through his eyes and tore his head from his body, put her thumb in his gaping mouth and bowled his head, tripping up a running boy, no more than twelve. He dove headfirst into a stone.

She gave an inhuman screech and jumped to and from the backs of the various running townsfolk as they cascaded down the hill, pulling out hearts and livers and spleens and lungs as she leapt. At the bottom she threw the fistful of organs upon the quaking reverend who recited vows in tongues before the wrath of God. Then she crushed his head under her skinless foot.

She walked up the hill of wailing souls, clutching themselves and their neighbors as they died. At the top Goldmund stood with tears washing off the ash on his face.

"What are you?"

"I used to be a human, like you, Goldmund, but my time was cruel, and for loving a man the party decommissioned my flesh and made me their tool. Their reach, however, does not extend to the tangible past. I am free here, and I love you, and that is what matters."

Goldmund looked into her eyes, one red and the other brown. He saw what she said was true, and was overcome with a feeling of security, of invincibility, of an unconquerable love. Then a log came crashing down on Julia's head, sending a rain of sparks over his surprised face. Gregor stood heaving behind the twitching thing, not meeting Goldmund's eyes.

"She wasn't human, Goldmund, she was a robot, a machine, a hunk of metal designed to do its creator's bidding."

"And aren't we hunks of clay molded by our creator to do his bidding?"

"There are no gods where we come from, Goldmund, only the party. The men who sent me back… they were delusional, power-crazed, lunatics. They would leave no free will in her."

Goldmund looked at the broken body beneath him, and the scattered bodies of the townsfolk it had slain.

"I'm sorry, Gregor, I've been short-sighted. I owe my life to you. That… machine… could have done me in. Let us walk."

And so they walked, but not before looting a couple corpses of their clothes and weapons.


	5. Chapter 5: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

_G & G meet R & G and What They Say to Each Other_

 _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern walk onto the stage talking, their speech hampered at first, slowly loudening into audibility. From here on out they shall be referred to as_ ROS _and_ GUIL _, irrespectively. One of them seems to have said something clever, and the other has said something derisive in response._

GUIL: What kind of God who can render worlds born would look upon a canine's rear end willingly, more than once?

ROS: Zeus the goose, the correlation between gods and bestiality is unsettling.

GUIL: Perhaps that's why it's spelled best and not beast.

ROS: I don't think either of us knows enough about etymology to conclude that.

GUIL: I know enough about Tim; though I wasn't aware he had a religion.

ROS: Yes, he's a catholic.

GUIL: That settles it. I think combined we know enough about Tim to justify whatever we were saying before.

ROS: Wait, you mean his own religion?

GUIL: Yes, I believe it was A-Tim-ology.

ROS: Aha! A homophone!

GUIL: I don't think that's necessary. I'm sure his congregation is very accepting.

ROS: The congregation of humanity is cannibalistic. Even those we lure into our masses goodheartedly we take advantage of. We continuously suck the life force from one another for every second we gather, gaining nothing. Men were meant to be lonesome animals.

GUIL (loping away): I suppose if that's how you feel.

ROS: No, come back! We must rely on each other to survive!

GUIL (loping back): I suppose if that's how you feel.

ROS (pointing to the vacant left side of the stage): Look, up ahead, another couple.

GUIL (whirling around, panicked): Where is the first?

ROS: I don't know, we must have missed them.

GUIL: Pity, I wasn't aware we were aiming.

ROS: Aiming at what?

GUIL: Them?

ROS: Which them?

GUIL: The royal them.

ROS: You mean us?

GUIL: No, no, I think that'd be suicide.

ROS: Suicide or not, death is always approaching. His footsteps are silent until he's very close, and then you can hear them quite loudly. He always moves at the same pace, for individuals, of course. It can vary between people. He only seems to get quicker toward the end.

GUIL: My heart beats like a drum.

ROS: Each beat is a footstep.

GUIL: Then if I stop my heart he'll stop in his tracks. He'll never reach me!

ROS: No, by then he'll already be beside you.

GUIL: That's not fair. There must be a way to win.

ROS: There is, and it lies in the afterlife.

GUIL: Tim-ology?

ROS: Every religion. And it's A-Tim-ology, like A-teen or A-corn or A-D.

(GOL and GREG enter)

GOL: Good day, fellow travelers. Is Transylvania very far behind you?

GUIL (grouchily): I should hope so.

ROS: Hope only leads to disappointment.

GUIL: And disappointment leads to depression.

ROS: And depression leads to suicide.

GUIL: Such a revolving cycle.

ROS: It never stops.

GUIL: Just keeps going, around and around.

GOL: I'd love to chat, but my friend and I must go.

(The stage moves left as and GOL and GREG move right. ROS and GUIL exeunt unmoving.)

GOL: Syphilis?

GREG: That, or temporal displacement sickness.

(Fade out)


	6. Chapter 6: Transylvania

The day had been rough, and the companions' brows were worn by the trickling descent of gallons of sweat. The bar made from repurposed barstools stood beside their path like a cheap hall of Valhalla, but they were obliged to enter by aching joints and diminished wills, and neither had anything to bequeath in the first place. Unfortunately, a robbery was taking place, one which only usually took place as a metaphor for steep prices. The owner, or at least whoever was standing behind the bar of this establishment, held a jagged dagger to the throat of a traveler whom carried more excessive jewelry than a princess. The owner did not look displeased by the newcomers' arrival.

"You, handsome wayfarers, come help me relieve this young man of these encumbering objects. Split three ways, the fortunes each of us will gain will surpass even those found in the kingdom above."

The two travelers nodded toward one another, and approached the occurring trespass of heavenly law. With gentle hands they disarmed the barman and tied him under his tap and cut his mouth in such a way that drinking anything from the above fountain would cause significant stinging. The saved young man looked upon his deliverers graciously.

"Thank you, good sirs. I was not planning on staying here for the night; only the partaking of a drink was on my mind when I came in. Owing you my life, I could not stand for you to sleep in such an unkempt pile of branches. Accompany me to my castle, and there we shall dine on the finest meats either of you have encountered."

"Your gratitude humbles us," replied Goldmund. "We accept your invitation, good friend. I am Goldmund, and this is Gregor. Please, bless us with the knowledge of your name."

"I am known as Chesterfield, and it is a pleasure to meet you, Gregor and Goldmund. Come with me to the cart and we shall be on our way."

And so our weary heroes boarded Chesterfield's carriage and related their travels to the eloquent stranger as they traveled to his castle, leaving out Gregor's strange ability, of course.

* * *

Lamb chops, steaks, Cornish hens, and other delicious delicatessens covered the table. When Goldmund inquired if his host ate fruits or vegetables, the man laughed and replied that the animals did that for him. Gregor was sure that was not how it worked, but didn't know enough about biology to correct Chesterfield. Other than that, the unvaried variety of food took up all the space that words could have filled.

Once stuffed, the men waddled to their respective rooms, and fell asleep in their ominously pre-prepared beds immediately, with no time to lie on their backs and stare at the ceiling, wondering why such a polite man lived in such a large castle in such solitude, or how he kept the place clean.

* * *

The count bent over his Russian prey, a smile cutting his face almost in two. Preparing himself for sweet, succulent pleasure, the count closed his eyes. Then he gave his visitor a particularly passionate hickey. Once the horrid liquid flowing through the man's veins met Dracula's palate, however, the vampire's eyes grew wide and he drew back, hissing. The giant cockroach, with its bulbous eyes emotionless and incisors sporadically slicing the air, hissed right back at its attacker. Gregor grabbed the white man with his plethora of little sticky legs and defenestrated him, and then hovered out of the window to watch the nocturnal intruder's descent. Instead of falling, to Gregor's disappointment and surprise, the man became a bat, and flew straight through the cockroach, mortally wounding it. Gregor spiraled into the abyss as the bat retreated to the castle overlooking it.

* * *

Goldmund heard the figures shifting around him. Chesterfield's mistresses, no doubt, here for something else easily deducible. He smiled. The journey seemed to be returning his youthfulness. He was in the middle of this pleasant thought when one of them bit his neck. Goldmund sat up with a start, causing the woman to stagger backward, her skin bubbling into red pustules, carbuncles forming around her body and then popping, whittling her small body to the bone until all her flesh lied splattered and red around the room, infested and quivering.

"What have you done to me?" the eyeless, bloody, and scraggly skeleton asked him.

Goldmund, unaware that he was an unaffected carrier of the black plague, shrugged. Then he cut off her head with his broadsword. The other two women, who Goldmund concluded weren't women at all, fled. Just at that moment, Gregor's haywire bug form buzzed past the window.

Seeing that his friend was badly injured and thinking quickly, Goldmund tied up the blankets on his bed and threw them out the window.

"Gregor, grab onto this!"

The bug comprehended this command, for it began circling in a more directed way. Just before it slammed into the rock wall below the castle, it became Gregor, and he grabbed onto the rope of cloth. Goldmund pulled Gregor to safety and laid him on the stripped bed, bloodying the mattress in the same manner an inexperienced girl may.

"What the hell is that?" Gregor asked weakly, his eyes catching the decapitated skeleton in the corner.

Goldmund was about to explain but Gregor shook his head.

"Never mind, I don't have much time," he grasped his fellow's hand. "Goodbye friend. Get out of here alive."

"No!" Goldmund shouted. "Wait here, you shan't die. Now, where is that cur Chesterfield?"

And Goldmund left his fading friend's side, the first trickle of sunlight passing over his pale face.

* * *

Dracula hocked a loogie and spit, shaking his whole body like a dog to rid himself of the membrane of roach guts encysting him. Elizabeth and Gertrude awaited him in the rotten cathedral, both looking nonplussed and offering no explanation for Alexandra's absence. None of them conversed as they receded into their respective coffins.

"God curse you, Chesterfield," Dracula muttered. "What wrath have you brought upon my household?"

* * *

"Where are they?" Goldmund shouted, pressing his broadsword into poor Chesterfield's throat.

"Down the hallway to the right, the fourth door to the left. Please kill them all. They made me do it, I can't be held responsible, though I'm so sorry. I beg you; release me from my servitude, o great and humble lord."

"My pleasure," Goldmund replied, and with that he cut the man in half.

At first it was as if nothing had happened, and then Chesterfield's torso fell backward to the ground with a thump, while the legs still stood, paralyzed. Goldmund kicked them onto the wretched half man and followed his instructions.

The first coffin he opened had a pale white and tall man in it, covered in brown goo. Goldmund dragged the body out of its box and down the hall and down the steps in an uncouthly manner, so that the back of its head knocked against each step and chaffed on each floorboard.

Gregor was not awake when Goldmund arrived. Without concern for the semantics of his plan, he pinned Dracula to the wall above his bed with his broadsword, and then, using his dagger, cut the veins out of the suspended man. Soon Dracula's blood, which had been stored stagnantly in his body for hundreds of years, was flowing into Gregor. Goldmund watched as his friend's chest healed, but grieved when he checked his pulse. Gregor was dead.

"I won't leave you here," Goldmund told the dead man. "I'll give you a proper burial, where the evils of this place cannot taint your soul."

He threw the body over his back and left the castle, stole Chesterfield's carriage and rode for miles and miles, until the horrors behind him were more dream than memory.


	7. Chapter 7: Traveling

The grave was shallow, but it was the best Goldmund could do. He used a board torn from the side of the carriage to dig it. The horses died from dehydration. A fire made from more torn off parts of the now useless carriage sat under skewers of horse meat. Goldmund thought of burning his friend, but he had already dug the ditch. He sat next to the stiff, tearing meat off in chunks with his teeth, reminded of Chesterfield's feast. The horse carcasses looked unappetizing across the rising embers, but they were impossible to reconcile with the smoking brown food his teeth grinded mindlessly. The cooked and rancid meat aromas mixed in the warm air, the smell emitted so awful Goldmund cried, and cried, and wept, and chewed.

The sticks stuck gnawed and bared at attention over the dirt and what lied underneath. The sun set and sent a blood red sheet of oil over the invisible canvas of the atmosphere, soaking it in its cerise misery. The charred remnants of the carriage smoked, and the smoke plumed straight into the sky. Goldmund grabbed a black piece with little bits of fire still hopping off and pressed it against the skin of his forearm, screaming at the silent night as his skin burned, and burned, and burned.

Why had he met this strange traveler? Why had he saved his life? Why was it of such value to him? Why did Goldmund love this cockroach? Why was such belittlement of the dead necessary to get over them? To convince ourselves that truly nothing is lost, yet the gap remains, covered only by a thin floor of lies, like leaves spread over a ditch filled with eager pointing spears. Goldmund flung the crackling char from him and stomped on the ashes and beat them with his fists, tears still rolling like clouds over a new horizon.

The ground behind him exploded, knocking his face into the pulverized ash. Goldmund quickly rolled around and saw a white bony hand wrapped around Gregor's funeral sticks. The whole earth trembled, a crack formed, and a steaming, emaciated corpse lunged out of the dirt, sending clumps of mud onto its awed spectator and the ground surrounding. The corpse's eyes were alive and found Goldmund on the ground, quivering in shock.

Gregor extended his hand.

Pushing himself up, Goldmund ignored the hand, staring into the corpse's blue, unchanged eyes. He frowned after a moment, looked down at the hand, a splinter in its thumb, and pushed it aside, embracing his friend.

* * *

Gregor had no heartbeat and could not travel in daylight, but that did not matter; he was alive. The two friends traversed treacherous mountains without fear, for Gregor's cockroach ability allowed him to swoop down and grab Goldmund if he fell, not that he ever did, but the safety net was there. During the days they camped in crevices where they could watch the blue and icy clouds rove the skies in cyanotic packs, blacking out the sun so that it was rarely visible, and never strong.

Weeks later they stood on the docks over the Ural River. Well, Goldmund stood, holding a crate on his left side he had bought the day before and which contained a specimen of an extremely rare species of cockroach, dead but still in great dissecting condition. Money pilfered by an insect during the dead of night jingled in his pocket, anxious to be in the hands of a gracious sailor. Eventually it got what it wanted, and Goldmund found himself sleeping in a rickety cot during the day and sweeping the deck at night, a task many of the other sailors couldn't believe he could accomplish so well night after night, with no help at all. It was easily a two man job, but Goldmund did it without complaint or seeming to overwork himself. No one ever questioned what the able traveler kept in his little crate. Man's possessions were not exactly sacred on the seas, but the sailors respected this old man. By the end of the trip, the captain of the ship refunded Goldmund all of his gold, plus a bit extra for the help he gave on the trip. Goldmund accepted this after once politely declining, and then bought a small sailboat and sailed south along the coast of Asia, and then into the open ocean.

* * *

During the intermediate hours of dusk and dawn the friends spoke of past times, dreams, and reality. Gregor told his friend he would stay in New Zealand after this was finished, and Goldmund was welcomed to stay with him, but Goldmund shook his head.

"I've lived past my time already. We have been good friends, and shall continue to be, but the afterlife is calling me. One day you shall join me there, for we believe in the same heaven, but we must part after I end this war, if you wish to stay on the island. Perhaps one of us will change their mind about this by the end, perhaps not."

A shoreline became visible on the horizon, and light began to shine from behind it. Goldmund put his friend in the crate and sailed yonder.


	8. Chapter 8: New Zealand

The second time the duo washed up on a beach was more pleasant than the first, For Goldmund, at least. Gregor was indifferent, as he was practically dead. Goldmund dropped the anchor into the sand because there was nothing to tie the boat to. Then he hopped from the vessel with the crate still in his arms. A bright, sprightly pain hammered its way into his mid-foot region and Goldmund stumbled, dropping the crate so that it rolled and opened and its contents kept. He had to jump over the cockroach to keep from squishing it. Lying face down in the sand, heaving in its course particles, Goldmund reneged his initial thought, for this washing up was far from pleasant. And that's when his hands were tied behind his back.

* * *

The boy should've been brown. The red slashes on his face could've been made from his nose. His eyes were black. Clothing scarce. Dimples too. Nil, more likely. He munched on a giant roach leg as he watched the traveler sleep. A few exoskeletal bodies sat in a pile, waiting to be roasted. Snakes shifted through the dunes, circling the scene. The boy was biting off mouthfuls bigger than his mouth. The crunching never escaped his lips, though.

Goldmund had been awake for a while and was looking through slits in his closed eyes at the boy watching him, sometimes making direct eye contact, which felt a bit creepy. When the boy finished his insect leg he kicked Goldmund, making him pretend to jolt awake. The chained man made a show of discerning that he was chained, and then lied limply where he had been. The two looked at each other under the cool rays of sunlight.

A white hand reached out and touched tanned skin, caressed it, and withdrew. The boy then felt his own bare ribcage. It would've been natural for those bony fingers to disappear into the ridges in the boy's side, evening the skin and connecting his arms back to his body so they'd look like ghoulish chicken wings, white and hollow. The boy would then squawk, raise his head to the sky, and lunge into the air, spearing pleasant doves with his terrible nose, wreaking hell across the skies. But that's only what would've been natural, what the boy did was point at his mouth, rub his side again, and point at Goldmund, or more likely, his skin. Goldmund didn't like what he thought the boy was implying.

The bone-saw the boy produced from behind the log he sat upon did less to ease Goldmund's mind. The sun above them promised the return of Gregor in say, oh about eight hours. So for now it was mano e tied up mano. The boy scooted his log chair closer to Goldmund, and then set his crude saw on Goldmund's upper thigh, apparently done with all deliberation.

This wasn't very hard. Goldmund head-butted the kid, kicked the dropped saw away like a jack rabbit, rolled onto the boy, head-butted him again, bit his nose off, hopped off the squirming boy and to the saw, bent over, sawed open his legs, walked back over to the boy, who was now unconscious, turned around, squatted over him, thunked the saw in the kid's leg, careful not to mortally wound him, grabbed the biggest cockroach in the pile and started walking toward the giant hemispherical glacier on top of a mountain a few miles away.

Goldmund only hoped that would deter the child from attempting to eat a stranger for their skin ever again.

* * *

The sun was almost down by the time Goldmund reached the bottom of the mountain. The verticality of its slope induced Goldmund to sit in the umbra and wait for the world to become it. When it did, his cockroach chittered to life, looked around and then gave Goldmund a ride to the top. There the bug became Gregor, who proceeded to untie Goldmund and ask what he had missed.

"Not much," Goldmund admitted.

The dome stood before them, radiating its frozen presence and giving the two men goosebumps. A twelve by twelve foot square slowly edged out of the hemisphere and parted in its middle, exhausting a plethora of cold mist. They shivered and stepped inside.

The cavern's icy walls were covered in long smooth intertwined worms, each carrying some kind of soulless energy toward the behemoth resting in the cavern's center. The behemoth's eyes were emptier than Kublai's, foretelling of nothing, radiating decadence. Gregor, overcome with greed, morphed into his animal form and flew into the bloated living corpse. The skin gave way without resistance, and the bug buried its jaws in the diseased and atrophied flesh, gorging itself with sickening meat. Goldmund watched the backside of his friend flitter with joy and then disappear in the humongous woman, whose face now bore a smile.

Unable to call for his comrade, or approach the vile thing ensnaring him, Goldmund heaved the contents of his stomach onto the floor as the foreign squelching of incisors separating flesh assaulted his ears. The woman now threw her head backward, laughing and letting small pills fall into her jubilant jaw, and the hole in her stomach sealed itself behind the occupied bug.

"Gregor," Goldmund whispered fiercely. "I shall avenge you!" He did not believe Gregor was actually dead, or in any danger whatsoever, but didn't feel obligated to let his enemy know this.

"Wait!" sneered the lump of mass. "Don't you wish to know why I waged war against the Khan, whose heir you were meant to become?"

Goldmund stopped, but did not let his guard down.

"I was born in a future where are desires are fulfilled, and pleasure reigns supreme. I love this future, and for it to be an inevitability is my only cause. I was sent back in time by the controllers to assure its outcome, for at this moment it becoming a reality is only 30% probable. This is because of your children, Goldmund. They will grow up without a father, as bastards, and they will grow to loathe the life you led, for it damned them to their miserable lives. They will do everything in their power to keep pleasure from becoming a ruling factor. Their will is so strong that I must constantly be pumped full of this pleasure dome's energy to keep myself from fluxing out of the timestream. To ensure my eventual existence, I must devise a way to rid the planet of your children."

Goldmund blinked. "No, there's got to be another way… can't you make them impotent? They can't pass down their values to future generations if they have no children."

"On the contrary, Goldmund, those without children will become teachers, priests, and politicians, and will influence the future much more than those bearing their own children."

"I see," Goldmund said, ruminating. "I've already met travelers from the more probable future, and their world seems to have gone to hell. For the sake of mankind, then, I shall sacrifice my children."

"Ford bless you," the woman crooned. "Now come, take me."

Goldmund tossed his sword to one side, and once more approached his foe, this time with a very different goal in mind. He took her, and it was not over until the fat lady sang out a name, "Popé."

* * *

Goldmund redressed himself as the dome shook violently, artificial lightning shooting from the wall snakes, cracks forming in the ground and ice falling from the sky.

Linda screamed, and her stomach burst wide open, revealing a monster that would destroy the future of another monster that had inhabited the same womb minutes before. It was large, grey, and hairy. It had the body of a bear, the head of a wolf and was eyeless, its sockets bleeding and brain bulging out of them. The monster hopped out of the prolapsed body its mother had become, and then dashed out of the pleasure dome, on its way to kill thousands of innocent children.

Goldmund sighed deeply, looking at the bug peeping from the remains of Linda, waved goodbye to his friend, and then began the journey back home.


	9. Chapter 9: Epilogue

Epilogue 1

 _Linz, Austria_

The personality mimicking software in the machine had been damaged beyond repair, but the machine's internal gestation chambers were still fully functional, and had received what they required before their counterparts had been disabled, the seed of a true timer.

Epilogue 2

 _The Pleasure Dome, New Zealand_

Gregor watched his friend leave the palace through the massive crater created by the beast that he had shared occupancy with for several seconds before it left. What have you done, my friend, he thought, and then lowered his head to feast on the succulent remains of Linda. It's not cannibalism if you're temporarily a cockroach and she's from another timeline, is it?

Epilogue 3

 _CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia_

Twelve men sit around a table, their cuts crew and stature uniform, and dress uniforms.

"We have convened here today because of a startling discovery. We are not currently living in real time, only speculative time. Real time has lagged behind almost a millennium, and since then a multitude of alternate timelines has emerged. It seems that each has developed their own time machines and has increased their chances greatly of becoming the real future. Our data shows that our now has only a 4.2% chance of being the real future, as it stands. Gentlemen, we are at risk of total nonexistence, unless we act now, we will never have acted, ever. That is the situation as it stands."

The heads in the room all turned to one the one man who sat unperturbed by this news.

"I have a team," he said, "and a plan."

For Your Consideration

1\. Linda was chosen for this mission because her body type was required for practical use of the pleasure chair, and she supplanted the Mauri king to take the seat. What followed her declaration against the throne closely resembled a sumo match. Despite her claims, Linda did not need energy to keep her from slipping out of the timestream; this was only jargon she picked up from the controllers' briefing. The energy did, however, keep her alive and gave her minor regenerative abilities.


End file.
